Layered Discrimination: How Latent Islamophobia Persists in Bengal’s ‘Secular’ Society

The streets of India’s West Bengal State, majorly Kolkata, witnessed numerous protests, long marches, and rallies for the last month in recent times demanding justice and legal punishments against the perpetrators of the heinous incident that occurred on August 9 at Kolkata’s RG Kar Hospital where a junior doctor was reportedly raped and caused to death. People from all walks of life throughout the State, as well as the country, are showing their solidarity either by organizing protest events or by participating in ongoing protest marches against such inhuman and brutal action. It is a very familiar scenario in the State or at its capital of historical importance of such kind from the time of British colonialism and its emancipation from the imperial clutches to showcase such agitations whenever it finds something happening against human rights, injustice, oppression, violations, or political unrest and many more issues around the world.

Conversely, what is unfamiliar within this familiar frame of reference in the post-independent time is the cherry-picking of incidents that suit the ‘consciousness’ of the educated, civil, upper caste-middle class protest organizers from every corner of numerous professions and therefore excluding other genuine significant violations against human rights or injustice or political oppressions considering it as trivial or redundant.

Interestingly, this consideration of triviality gets assured with wilful indifference to issues related to Muslims of Bengal or having Muslim connections.  On the other hand, the same intelligentsia becomes more concerned with the Muslim women, human rights, and political oppression of one group by another in countries where the Muslim population is in majority.

For instance, take the recent incident of the brutal lynching of Sabir Mallick, a Bengali Muslim migrant labourer from Basanti Police Station in West Bengal’s South 24 Pargana district who was thrashed to death in the BJP-ruled State, Haryana, on the 27th of August this year by five self-proclaimed cow vigilantes or cow-terrorists on suspicion of cooking and eating beef at his home. Sabir Mallick, who used to work as a ragpicker in Bandhra village of Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri district with his family to earn his livelihood by gathering discarded materials and rags, was being duped into selling discarded materials by the accused to vent out their hatred against this migrant Muslim labourer. Though this trend of mob lynching on suspicion of cow smuggling, eating beef, or keeping it in a refrigerator has turned out to be a known fact and normalized scenario after the killing of Akhlaq working as migrant workers in BJP ruled States, non-BJP States like West Bengal and the society at large are maintaining silence and numbness against such inhuman activities.

Surprisingly, except for a few, those fighting to ensure justice for the RG Kar incidents have not uttered a single word or included Sabir’s name for justice in their ongoing protests and marches. Furthermore, there were neither any demonstrations of verbal retaliation against the rhetorical question of the chief minister of Haryana when he said, “Who could stop them (the cow-vigilantes)?” by the State leaders, parliamentary representatives from any political parties– irrespective of colours, in the form of a political statement or press release issued as a sign of protest. The reason is crystal clear. His religious identity and his place of residence in the peripheral location- far away from the luminous streets of Kolkata are sufficient for them to be selective and conscious before raising their voices.

Moreover, Bengal—being a secular and non-BJP State where a Muslim vote bank plays a crucial role in deciding who wins the throne, has eight Muslim political representatives altogether in both lower and upper houses and forty-two Members of the Legislative Assembly with few ministerial posts. Unfortunately, none of the Muslim representatives have spoken a word about the lynching of Sabir Mallick, nor has a single protest march been held in the streets of Kolkata by any Muslim organizations, nor any NGOs, which are brimming by leaps and bounds, and the larger salaried Muslim society have not been found in the streets protesting against such rampant events.

However, there is another twist concurrent to this chain of lopsided proceedings of the Bengal society concerning the infertile and sedentary negligence along with compartmentalized pursuit within the excluded Muslim community preferring silence to raise active voices on their issues, except a few social media activists within closed groups. Additionally, at times, a section of educated community sympathizers expresses their discontent over the lack of socio-cultural representations in societal artefacts and anguish over their nominal representations in the electoral forms of governance and holding of posts in the mainstream political parties, irrespective of colour.

Take the example of a recent government circular. On the 28th of August, the Secondary Branch of the School Education Department under the Government of West Bengal published a list of recruitment to the posts of Chairman/Chairperson for its five regions in which there is not a single Muslim candidate selected in the panel list. It has made an uproar among the educated Muslims of the State among the different sections of the community citing it as systematic deprivation and majoritarian supremacy. An outburst of unrest against such discrimination has been visible in social media, print media, and news portals showcasing the violation of fair and equal opportunities stipulated by the Government of India in any recruitment board vide memo no. O.M. No. 42011/15/1995-Estt.(SCT) dated 11th July 1995 and the revised Memo No. F.NO.42011/2/2014-Estt.(Res.) dated 13th July, 2014 which secures the presence of a representative from the minority.  Long story short, the outcry is on the sidelining of Muslim representatives in higher posts in the government sector which is schematically maintained throughout with few exceptions.

Conventionally, Muslim political representatives have been staged as a token of empowerment for the community- obviously for securing vote banks, because of the one-third Muslim population of the State. It’s saddening that their existence involves no actual significance to the acute issues of the community rather than proving their loyalty towards their political custodians. Eventually, such leaders maintain ignorance or silence when issues like Muslim lynchings take place in any part of the country. Naturally, the question arises: why do Bengali Muslims need any community or political leaders at all when they turn out to be mute spectators? Or are their voices being compromised or suppressed by the system they are part of in the power structure of the State? It may be assertive for both questions, especially for those who have closely observed Bengal politics recently.
The silence of the majority community over the recurrent brutal issues against Muslims and silencing the voices of dissatisfaction of Muslim political representatives against the same within the power structure of the Bengal society are sometimes labelled as deprivation and discrimination. Few groups of concerned educated Muslim intelligentsia question these kinds of racist treatments by taking writing as a form of protest against it in community-run newspapers or news portals. But it can be argued that such deprivations and discriminations are being elicited from anti-Muslim or Islamophobic hatred prevalent in Bengal society the initiation of which dates back to the nineteenth-century Bengal reformation in the hands of the then prominent figures, the predecessors of today’s Hindutva ideology, like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Ishwar Gupta, and a flock of writers.  The same sentiment and the nurturing of the same against the Bengali Muslims after almost two hundred years are thus visible in the present Bhadralok society in the form of latent Islamophobia. This can be noticed in their movement to divide Bengal for a Hindu Homeland in the 1940s or the deafening silence on sexual abuses in KunanPoshpora or Soni Sori.

Mainstream newspapers and local media are also complicit in the nurturing and conventionalization of latent Islamophobia. The leading media houses specifically cover Muslim issues with grandeur embellishment and insinuate their motive to blame the whole community or their religion when they find any Muslim individual committing any misdeeds and not the specific person. They always ignore covering pertinent issues related to the everyday living of the community. Take the example of the two incidents mentioned above. Neither the popular mainstream Anandabazar Patrika, Ei Samay, Bartaman among other publish any coverage as they usually do with any Muslim links to anti-social activities.

Nevertheless, in both cases, the GoB has taken the so-called positive initiatives; it declared a government job to Sabir’s family; the concerned Department again published a revised circular including three Muslim representatives in the panel list after the uproar by the community people. Contrarily, is it enough for a family and a younger daughter who lost her father for good? Is the weighing of human life with a job and slating brutality with the price of life appropriate enough to let it get normalized in society? Aren’t such initiatives setting the backdrop for more incidents like this to happen? What about justice for a Bengali Muslim minority living in a Hindu-majority State? Though the Haryana police have arrested the five cow vigilantes, who can be assured they will be dealt with stringent punishment for their heinous deeds, when one witnesses the fate of a Dalit or a Muslim in connection with the judicial system of the present country and when non-BJP States like Bengal fails to take that responsibility?

Furthermore, for the latter, this is not the first time such incidents have occurred; this single case is a snapshot only. The tradition of discrimination is deep-rooted either in the form of deprivation in equal share to numerous social fields or violating the roaster system under the Reservation Policy for the Other Backward Class (OBC) in which Muslims have a sizable share. It is untrue that there are ineligible candidates from the Muslim community; there are plenty of them who deserve such higher posts. Because of the systematic manipulation of power and inherent Islamophobic attitude, such cases of latent Islamophobia come out disguised as deprivation or discrimination.

It’s high time to protect and energize the vibrancy of Bengal society from its decadence entangled within the divisive politics of caste, religion, and racism. If a society cannot ensure the safety, security, social justice, and equality of its minorities, it is shameful to uphold the foundational glory and tradition of the said society.